Innovation Challenge

Finnish innovation and research gets a boost from the government: permanent increase of EUR 100 million for funding

30 Aug 2018

Demands to put emphasis on innovation have not gone unnoticed, as the Finnish government proposes in its budget a 100 M€ permanent increase for research and innovation funding. The new funding will partly fill up the gap caused by the recent cuts to research and education.

”This decision is a great commitment made by the Finnish Government to develop our world-leading innovation system further. It will significantly improve the possibility for Finnish innovation players to build ecosystems that have global significance,” says Spinverse Founder and Chairman Pekka Koponen, who also acts as the chair of the Innovation working group of Technology Industries of Finland.

Koponen points out that this increase paves the way toward the goal of investing 4 % of Finland’s GDP in research, development and innovation by 2030 (Vision 2030). In this vision, Finland aims to be the most attractive and competent environment for experimentation and innovation in 2030. The current figure stands at under 3 %.

The budget increase is supposed to increase collaboration between universities, universities of applied sciences, research organisations, and the industry.

“Lots of work has been done in a public-private partnership between the industry, academia, and the public sector to drive this decision, and we at Spinverse are proud to be part of this team,” Koponen says.

The new budget allocations were well aligned with chancellors’ working group recommendations. There is still space for increasing the budget in coming years to reach internationally competitive level.

The largest single recipient of additional funding is Business Finland (formerly Tekes), which will distribute nearly 70 M€ of grants to research and business. An additional 8 M€ was given to Business Finland to use for developing internationalisation and export activities. Other recipients of additional funding include the Academy of Finland, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and universities of applied sciences.